“No man’s land”, a term usually reserved for unhabitable places, does not make this cover art justice. In reality, the Zhangjiajie National park is one of the most exciting attractions in all of China. The pillar-like rock formations have this very unique look and inspired the movie Avatar. I had this image by Joshua Sortino as my desktop background for a long time now and decided to dedicate Planetarium’s final (regular) episode of 2018 to it.
Niemandsland encompasses a wide range of styles of ambient music, but the two complementary opening tracks by Loscil, Aaron Martin, Dag Rosenqvist and the amazing acoustic guitar by Seabuckthorn on both set the tone really well. Later in the set, bold and full tracks by offthesky, vau, Yui Onodera, AngusMacRae and InsaDonjaKai are supported by the calmer sounds courtesy of Chihei Hatakeyama, Cheekbone, Anthéne, William Basinki and Lawrence English. As the penultimate track, I chose quite a rhythmic track for a change of pace in the archives of Planetarium.

On November 1, Planetarium had its 5th anniversary. The second and final celebratory set emerges from a retrospective on some very early ambient releases dating back as far as 1988 (Steve Roach) that are deemed essential to the genre’s timeline. You’ll also find some not-so-ancient tracks in here made by Planetarium staples like Ian Hawgood, 36 and Purl.